Public Comment

The writer (a former candidate for Berkeley City Council) of a recent opinion piece on Berkeleyside.org argues that most of the present Berkeley elected officials are opportunistically motivated and climbing the political ladder.

I agree. Witness their sellout of People’s Park, a site listed on the National Register of Historic Places and a much needed urban green space recognized by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. However, our mayor and council majority sometimes do the right thing – saving the West Berkeley Shellmound, one of the largest of the hundreds that used to ring the San Francisco Bay.

In his opinion piece, Alex Sharenko pushes a truly repugnant ideology. Additionally, Sharenko does not seem able to decide if he wants a parking lot now or housing later. He claims “plans for the land are completely unknown.” This is a totally dishonest statement when anyone can google “plans for West Berkeley Shellmound” and quickly be taken to the shellmound.org website. If Alex wants a parking lot to build housing, how about UC Berkeley’s, a few blocks north at Fourth and Virginia Streets? Or other underutilized former industrial sites in West Berkeley? 

But not every plot of land must be built upon with the attitude of build anything, anywhere. We have ignored the real solutions to the California housing crisis. The rest of the industrialized world solves the crisis by increasing public, social and cooperative housing. Trickle-down economics does not work. Market rate development, with its quota of a few affordable units if any, only enriches the already rich and does not create either accessibility or affordability of housing. Unfortunately California has become proof of this dynamic. 

Our Bay Area Democrats, handsomely funded by the tech and real estate and development industry are leading the charge on bad housing policy. We all saw the hit pieces during the last election. In their catering to investors the politicians ignore the value of historically and culturally significant properties. Senator Scott Wiener wants to build high rises on coastal California. Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks writes a sweetheart deal of a bill for UC Berkeley to undermine the rational opinion on People’s Park issued by the State Court of Appeal. Major Jesse Arreguin cuts a bad, secret deal with UC Berkeley and then runs for higher office leaving the burden of it for years to come to city taxpayers. 

Beyond his discussion of parking lots and housing can be found the most striking feature in Sharenko’s piece – his total lack of recognition that the Shellmound is a highly significant indigenous historic site. Nowhere is there a mention of the Sogorea Te Land Trust or the Lisjan Nation. This invisibility can only be called erasure. Erasure of indigenous people’s humanity, culture, beliefs and land rights goes back to 1492. To have it repeated now represents the repugnant ideology that led to genocide and immeasurable suffering. The return of the West Berkeley Shellmound will not undo that history, but it is a recognition and a cultural restoration of a site that existed along the shore of the Bay long before anyone dreamed of building a pyramid in Egypt or a high rise on the California coast. 

Berkeley, CA